Street Fighter IV Update

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Second-hand impressions, and more from producer Yoshinori Ono.

By John Tanaka

Powerful publication that it is, Famitsu managed to get some hands-on play time with Street Fighter IV in advance of the game's AOU expo showing this weekend. And not only that, but the site also managed to score a short interview with producer Yoshinori Ono.

We'll be playing the game for ourselves at the show in order to deliver some direct hands-on impressions shortly, but fir biwm we've translated a few impressions from the Famitsu editors, as posted over the weekend on the Famitsu.com site. The editors played the game on January 18, and warned that Capcom's development staff was still tuning the gameplay.

The overwhelming impression from the editors was that Street Fighter IV really does feel like Street Fighter II in 3D. One editor joked that it was Street Fighter II-2.

Getting into specifics, one editor commented that the game's combat, while not as fast as some recent 2D fighters, isn't slow either. This editor noted that the characters take a bit of time for their follow through on attacks, so if your opponent misses a blow, you'll have an opportunity to strike.

Most of the editors mentioned one particular change to the gameplay: faster jumping. Following a jump, the characters return to the ground faster than in SFII. One editor actually failed to get into one of his SFII combos following a jump attack because the timing was different. This editor feels that his is the biggest change from SFII's gameplay, and he also expressed his pleasure with it.

On specific characters, the editors noted that Chun Li's winning poses are pulled straight from the classic SFII. Ryu feels like a mix between his Super Street Fighter IIX self and his SFIII Third Strike self, while Ken leans more towards the latter. Dhalsim has all his classic special moves, including the mid-air Yoga Teleport, although his limb extension feels slower than it was in SFII. Dhalsim also appears to have a number of new moves, some with "peculiar" motions. One of the new character, Crimson Viper, feels different from past SF characters, and offers players a lot of choice in how they want to use her.

Moving on to the Q&A session, the site first asked Ono to share some background on SFIV's development. Ono disclosed that he'd personally wanted for some time to make a new title reminiscent of Super Street Fighter II X, but the chance never came around. The opportunity at last presented itself when Keiji Inafune, producer of the Onimusha and MegaMan series, expressed the opinion that it would be good to at last make a new entry in the series. Ono suggested making the new title in time for the series' 20th anniversary.

On the topic of characters, Ono explained the abundance of classic Street Fighter II characters in the roster by once again noting his desire to get fans of the series playing without having to view the instructions. In response to a question about non SFII series characters appearing in the game, he said that while the roster is not yet complete, he's worried that there would be too many fighting styles, so the plan is to focus on the SFII cast. However, he does hope to respond to fan requests in some form in the future.

The focus on SFII characters may alarm fans of the Street Fighter III and Street Fighter Alpha franchises. Outside of just the charactrs, Capcom is also going with fighting systems that are evolved from SFII. The fighting system will not have elements from SFIII and Alpha, Ono confirmed.

While we've been given a chance to meet the SFIV cast over the past few weeks, Capcom has been keeping the game's stages under wraps. Ono promised stages produced in the image of classic SFII battlegrounds, along with some brand new stages. Elsewhere in the article, Famitsu revealed that three stages will be playable at the AOU arcade show in Tokyo this weekend, including a stage set in China.

The big question for SFII veterans is will the stage list include the classic car smashing bonus round. Ono said that he gets asked this question a lot, and while it's something he'd personally like to do, extending the play time in the arcade could effect profits for arcade operators. He didn't rule the bonus stage out, though, instead referring to it as something that's currently to be determined.

Ono hinted at some sort of card system for saving player data -- a pretty standard feature for arcade titles from Sega and Namco nowadays. He didn't get into specifics, only saying that he'd like to save battle history and records and have that save data be reflected in the game.

Famitsu also had the guts to ask Ono about bringing SFIV to home platforms. The producer gave the expected answer, noting that he personally wants to release the title on a variety of platforms in order to let the most people play it.

But the first chance to play the game for the masses will come in the arcades this Summer. Or, if you happen to live in the Tokyo area, this weekend at the AOU Amusement Expo. We'll be attending the show on press day on Friday, so be sure and turn back later tonight for impressions and more.